Disclaimer: Paramount owns everything here - the characters are but my playthings for a while (except for my story, and my mind, for that most definitely belongs to me. I hope!) NADA on the money too. Meh…

Something in the Shadows.

By

Isolde Jansma

B'Elanna gasped and stepped backwards, surprised, as the torchlight had definitely highlighted something scurrying across the floor of the derelict cube. She almost wished she hadn't volunteered for the reconnaissance team because she hated Borg ships with a passion; they were always so damn dark, and musty, hot. But, Seven needed some things for her alcove and she wanted to help as much as she could. Despite her misgivings in the early days, Seven was an important member of the Voyager crew and she knew Chakotay had feelings for her he was only just beginning to realise, and the fact that the woman seemed to be in the process of forming reciprocal emotions was just too good to be true.

She swung the light beam over the floor area again, and bent down to take a better look, getting to her knees and getting her head into a previously unseen gap. What did she have here, she wondered, and was so lost in her examination that she didn't hear the footsteps coming up behind her?

"Lieutenant," said a cool voice, and Torres started, again, but smacked her head firmly against the wall.

"Ow… shit, that hurt," she growled, and withdrew far enough to turn the torchlight upwards to shine it into Seven's face. "Geez, you could have warned me you were coming." B'Elanna rubbed her head.

The woman frowned slightly, bemused by this strange request, but decided to dismiss it as yet another piece of evidence in the jigsaw that was social behaviour. "We are returning to Voyager as we have obtained the items that we require. Have you retrieved what you wanted?"

The engineer rose to her feet after tucking the torch into her belt and dusted off her hands on her trousers. "Yeah, thanks." As the other woman turned to head back to the other members of the team, B'Elanna said, "I think I saw something move down there. Have you any ideas about it, Seven?" She pointed at the small opening she had been investigating.

Seven deliberated. "May I have your light?" As Torres handed it over to her, Seven crouched down to take a look at the opening, and then got to her knees. She pushed her head into the hole.

In the silence that followed, B'Elanna waited for her eyes to become accustomed to the ambient darkness once more, and she scoured the section of wall, listening keenly to everything. Or nothing? Then she heard it, and Seven did too, because the woman's body had tensed slightly.

"Well?" she asked, a tad impatiently.

Seven withdrew from the confined space and rose to her feet. "There is something there."

"Right," said B'Elanna, waiting for more information but when none was forthcoming asked, "What do you think it is?"

"It is a parasitic life form," said Seven disinterestedly. "Borg cubes are occasionally infested and require cleansing of the organisms as they can cause serious malfunctions in many systems. This may be why this cube is deserted."

"These parasites, are they like rats or something?"

Seven considered. "I do not know, as I have never seen a specimen of this species."

B'Elanna gaped at her, not quite believing what she had heard. "Never seen one?"

"I believe that is –"

"Yes, ok, I get it." The engineer shook her head in disbelief. She tapped her comm. badge. "Lieutenant Tuvok, I've found something unusual that could do with some investigation. Permission for the xeno-biology team to be notified?"

"Have you advised the Captain, Lieutenant, of your findings yet?"

"No, sir."

"I suggest you take the necessary tricorder readings and bring them to a debriefing in the ready room."

"Aye, sir," said the engineer, and took more readings to augment the ones she had already. She pointed at the hole and indicated that Seven had better get on with it too. When she was satisfied that she had obtained as much as feasible she tapped her comm. badge again. "Two to transport, Voyager."

Captain Janeway stood gazing out of the portal of the ready room and watched the cube as they matched its orbit around the moon of a rocky, insignificant planet with no mineral reserve or other redeeming feature, as that also turned about its primary in an endless dance. They had scanned the planet below very thoroughly, and though there was an atmosphere, it was a very young atmosphere, hot, acidic and volatile with copious amounts of carbon dioxide, and no tectonic plates to speak of. There were some very impressive volcanoes that put a few of the more famous of those in the Alpha Quadrant in doubt of their pole position. Even from orbit, a plume of violent magna could be seen spewing up into the upper atmosphere, a golden jet of luminosity.

As the door to the ready room opened, she turned to face some of the away team that had only too recently been on that damn intriguing cube. She smiled in greeting, and came towards the table. "What have you got?"

"Captain," Tuvok greeted her, and ran his eyes over the PADD in his hands before looking up to meet his commanding officer's quizzical look. "Lieutenant Torres has found something of an irregularity on the cube. It is an erratic and highly unusual bio signature."

"Really?" Janeway took the PADD from Tuvok and began to read, her interest piqued, scanning the lines of information quickly. She directed her attention to the younger woman, and took in the form of Seven standing close beside her. "Report, please."

Torres looked at Seven, but could see she would get no help there and launched into her findings. "I found a gap in the wall of the craft after I thought I had seen something scuttling about in the shadows, Captain. And... as the cube is supposed to be vacant I was a little disturbed at first." She handed over her own documentation to the Captain. "I asked Seven to check that I had not been imagining it, and she informed me that sometimes Borg ships have infestations of 'parasites' that require the ship to be temporarily abandoned."

Janeway was definitely interested now, tilted her head as she finished reading, and then she looked up at Seven. "Would you like to elaborate on these 'parasites', Seven?"

The woman looked a little perplexed. "It is as I have said, Captain. These things are parasites and cubes are fumigated to remove them. I have never seen a member of the species that causes the parasitism, and the Borg does not tolerate them once a cube becomes too heavily infested to function at optimum performance. As to whether this particular cube has been abandoned totally because of such, or due to some other as yet undiscovered disaster I do not know."

The Captain nodded, and asked, "But how do they survive on a ship which has no supplies, foodstuffs and so on? Surely that is of interest to us all, Seven, and I would have thought you to realise the import of something of this nature? "

"I… had not, Captain," admitted Seven slowly. "As a member of the collective such matters were not worthy attention, as it was merely a routine that would need occasional undertaking. Much the same as maintenance of Voyager."

Janeway nodded in understanding, and looked at her Vulcan security chief. "Do you have any thoughts on this, Tuvok?"

Tuvok weighed it up and frowned slightly. "The data is insufficient to determine what the exact cause of the movement Lieutenant Torres believed she saw, but it does bear further investigation by the xeno biology team as she has already suggested to me."

"I agree, Commander," the Captain said firmly; she glanced over at the Klingon engineer. "And you, B'Elanna, as this is your little discovery, would you be interested in overseeing the team?" She waved aside Torres' protestations, about her lack of suitable qualifications, of being an engineer, that she had no right trying to be a biologist, and smiled at the woman. "Oh, before you head off, I think that Seven can assist you too."

B'Elanna closed her mouth and thinned her lips in acceptance. A quick glance at Seven's face showed much the same expression, although she seemed to have accepted her fate with a certain amount of equanimity. They exchanged a look, and headed out of the doors at much the same time.

Tuvok watched them leave and turned to look at the Captain; he raised a brow at her. "Do you wish me to oversee this also, Captain?"

Janeway chuckled. "No, Tuvok, that'll be fine, but I think it'll be an interesting time for them, to discover a possible new friendship. I would, however, be interested in your report of the systems on that thing over there" – she motioned at the portal, at the great metal monster keeping apace of the sleek lines of Voyager – "and whether we can salvage more than a few relays." She gestured to a seat. "Shall we?"